On Demand
The World At Our Doorstep
Every autumn world leaders congregate in New York City for the UN's General Assembly. Shashi Tharoor, former Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information and author of the forthcoming book The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone: India, the Emerging 21st-Century Power (Arcade Publishing 2007) talks about this years General Assembly meetings, and Michael Goodwin, Daily News columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner and the News' Executive Editor and Editorial Page Editor, chimes in about the politics and problems of hosting these world leaders here in New York.
The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell Phone is available for purchase at Amazon.com
Shashi Tharoor's website
United Nations General Assembly
Goodwin's Daily News column today on Columbia and Ahmadinejad
- About the Brian Lehrer Show »
- Staff Bios »
- Contact Us »
- Tapes and Transcripts »
- Latest Episode »
- Show Archive »
Features & Series
Podcast
Stay up to date.
Subscribe to the Podcast
YOU PRODUCE The Brian Lehrer Show
Be a listener-producer with facts, questions and people you'd like to hear on the air.
More
The Brian Lehrer Show Scrapbook
Visit the scrapbook for daily photos and miscellany from The Brian Lehrer Show.
More
Shop at Amazon!
The Brian Lehrer Show picks
Start your Amazon shopping on WNYC.org and a portion of your total purchase goes to WNYC.
More
Comments
Refresh
Hello,
I am sending this email regarding to your upcoming show about 60 years of Indian democracy. My concern is human rights. India is world largest democracy with one of worst record on human rights. I am attaching two links so you can see the brutality and torture of police on its civilians. These are pictures of persons whose bodies were given to their relatives. Others whose corps is burned and thrown in rivers, we do not know how they were tortured?
1. (in this pic you can see person’s was burned with hot iron and his arm has signs of electric shocks) http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.sikhlionz.com/Shatrana.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.sikhlionz.com/martyrbhairavindersinghbabbar.htm&h=222&w=192&sz=9&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=WloACctox99V5M:&tbnh=107&tbnw=93&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpunjab%2Bpolice%2Btorture%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den
2 person burned with acid in police station http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040418/ldh5.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040418/ldh.htm&h=271&w=200&sz=16&hl=en&start=5&tbnid=be8-Dm22M_YOoM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=83&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpunjab%2Bpolice%2Btorture%2Bin%2Bpunjab%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den
3. one person was boiled in water I could not find his pic online. It used to be on internet.
India is not a democracy its constitution is based on discrimination. Sikhism is a different religion but since India’s constitution is has been ratified after freedom they are considered Hindus. (Dhara 25 of Indian constitution) Sikh has been demanding an amendment for last 57 years but Indian politicians are mute spectators. I am writing 57 years because Indian constitution is ratified on Janurary 26 1950.
INDIA IS RULED BY GOONS
India is a failed democracy,hundred of Indian MP are criminal according to Social watch
Young lawmakers are more prone to breaking laws. Mind you, 30.4 per cent of MPs between 36 and 45 years, who have been elected to the 14 th Lok Sabha are facing criminal cases in different parts of the country. And 18.3 per cent of them are facing grave charges.
Their elders, aged between 55 and 65 years, have lesser criminal cases against them-19.3 per cent. Before the polls, the coalition had looked into the antecedents of 3182 candidates cutting across the party line' and found that 16.28 per cent had criminal records.
Speaking of the United Nations, Bush's arrival there tomorrow morning are prompting numerous planned protests:
http://www.wcw-nyc.blogspot.com/
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3371&printsafe=1
http://www.votermarch.org/UNProtest.htm
http://www.codeorange.us/
http://www.stopbushsept25.org/
So all this Iran hating is making me sick, we shouldn't be yelling at this man. the USA propaganda machine is cramming up our airwaves with hate for this world leader. we should be working with him, why wont we let him pay respects at WTC? This country makes me sick with all this eye for an eye crap when they don't even know who poked the first eye to begin with. We should show more respect to humans but everyones so busy worry about their "team" winning. I finally got a job and missing listening to you every day =(
I find it interesting that all these “small-d” democrats are demanding--like bratty little children--that Ahmadinejad shouldn’t be allowed to speak. For “them,” freedom of speech is applicable only to those who share “their” opinions.
I also find it interesting that Ahmadinejad is quoted in the Western media constantly as a Holocaust denier. In all his interviews and sound bites that I’ve heard--listening to what the translator is saying, not the Western political “analysts”--he never comes out and blatantly says the Holocaust never happened. Rather, he’s provocative and questions some of the historical facts about the catastrophe to get Jews upset--which seems to work. Then Jews look around the proverbial room to make sure non-Jews are equally upset. If not, the anti-Semitism fly-paper is thrown at them. Just what Ahmadinejad wanted, and he’s laughing in hysterics back in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad knows full well that the Holocaust happened. He’s an educated man (Ph.D. in engineering, I believe) and he’s just trying to get your goat by using our pathetic news outlets (NY Post, CNN, Fox, the three netwrongs, scream-fest radio, etc.) as conduits since they are too lazy/too scared/too greedy/too stupid to parse his words more accurately.
Criticizing democracies for their flaws will never place detractors on higher ground for pointing them out.
I give points to Iran's prez for using this tool to his own advantage.
Now like to see the US media or government disarm this most immature of argument tactics -- and instead contesting him to provide solutions and answers about his own country.
Regarding the Iranian Presidents visit to the Columbia University is welcomed. I think all the anger is coming from primarily Jewish lobbies that feel that somehow the comments of one person have the impact of changing the facts that are on the ground.
By increasing the rhetoric against this person one only gives into giving value to the person.
One of the things I have noticed living in the US is that, if one has an opinion that is negative to the State of Israel one is immediately deemed to be Anti Semitic which to me is sad that for having a negative view about how say Israel deals with the Palestinians one can be deemed anti semetic which has nothing to do with the religion at all.
Unless there is a truly open dialog over this we will not find a common ground to lasting peace. If only there could be a possibility of the United States of Israel and Palestine.
Hey, if wingnuts knew how to talk to people they wouldn't have to shout on the front page of the Daily News.
We must look evil in the face. If we had paid closer attention to what Hitler saying in the 30's, perhaps things would have gone differently. But as long as Hitler was an ocean away, we could easily ignore him -- he was someone else's problem.
Mr. Ahmadinejad may not be Hitler, but he is the new face of evil. He has taken his beliefs, decided that they must be spread by whatever means are required, and is arming himself to do battle with those forces who would oppose him.
Many believe that it is a mistake to let him speak at Columbia, but I believe it is imperative. I believe the students of Columbia, the future leaders of our nation, must learn to look this man in the face, see behind the ace and look into his soul, see him for what he is. They need to see this for themselves, up close, so that in the future they will recognize it when they see it. We need to spread this knowledge, need it to be ingrained in our psyches, so that we will not feel compelled to stand idly by in the future when these people go about dragging the world into their nightmarish cauldron.
Oh now really. Ahmedinejad NEVER threaterned to wipe out Israel and it's time to get rid of that bad translation. The closest English short-version to what he said is regime change. Since the prez of the U.S. constantly threatens countries with regime change, then either censure W, or let Ahmedinejad alone. He's a demagogue, but so what? Many heads of state are demagogues. Letting them spout off is part of the way a smart person would handle them, allowing them to condemn themselves with their own words.
The reaction to Ahmadinejad speaking at a university is telling. This impulsive anger and the demand to isolate his views by censoring them from people who are willing to hear them is exactly what Bush wants. He wants a war with Iran, and like Iraq, the more ignorant the american people are the easier it will be to sell them a war.
eCAHNomics
Here is the link to his comment: http://economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9514293
Further, if you have graduate students in one of the premier International Relations programs in the world, their abilities to debunk and expose the precarious logic of his positions shouldn't be in doubt. Admittedly the CIA Dean could've picked a better example - Hitler pre-Nuremberg Laws would be acceptable as I see it.
I really can't believe that Goodwin is claiming that watching an interview on 60 Minutes and a speech at the UN offer the same educational experience as this forum.
Regardless of the validity of his ideas, he is one of the most important world leader in global politics right now. How can he deny the value to future diplomats? How can he say that asking a question directly and watching someone on television are the same thing?
Is that how the Daily News does its reporting?
IRAN'S TRADITION OF RESPECTABLE "GUILE"
Deception and guile are considered acceptable practices in Middle Eastern tradition.
It's just a different value system (see Epic of Rustam and Suhrab)
Consenquently, it's impossible to take the Iranian president's word at face value.
Just a quick thought, Columbia University's desire to entertain Hitler in a debate only proves what ill lengths it would go to in order to promote itself as some bastion of free speech. Are we all forgetting what happened when the Minuteman project leaders were there to speak and were basically physically attacked and not allowed to utter one word as the histrionic hyper liberal students that are such revelers in free speech for only those that they want to hear it from.
ahmadinajead is a monster? how about Ehud Olmert and George W. bush. this name calling is setting us up for supporting the next. thanks for helping to lay the groundwork, Brian. ahmadinajead may say some repulsive things, but let's get a couple of things straight here: he doesn't have that much power with the Iranian government, and is not suppored by the judiciary that actually does have power; if anyone is going to be wiping anyone of the map it's going to be the US and Israel doing doing it to Iran.
Might it be relevant here to point out that Israel already does have the bomb?
lastly, if you are not a member of the Columbia University community, this is not really your problem. would we even be talking about this if it were UM or U Chicago?? Columbia is not even a public school, and bollinger himself did not invoke "free speech" as a reason to have him speak there. sinec he is an outsider, he could have no such "rights".
I find myself wondering if this is a manufactured controversy to distract us from the important UN climate change conference.
(1) Do I approve of Columbia's inviting Ahmedinejad to speak?
Answer: Of course.
(2)What line of questioning would I want to pursue?
Answer: I'd ask Ahmedinejad to unpack his "wipe Israel off the map"-remark. Is it meant to imply "wipe Jews off the map"? Is it meant to apply only to Israel as currently constituted?--i.e., as a Jewish national state? Would Israel be okay with him, provided it were non-denominational, so to speak?
It may simply be the chance of which persons dialed fastest, but...
Isn't it fascinating that the real supporters of the First Amendment are women?
And it's men who are arguing for some rather severe curtailments of that Constitutional right?
You go, women!
Ah, in Comment 17, Chris voiced one of my thoughts: If being morally reprehensible is a standard for denying free speech, our current president should not be allowed any air time whatsoever.
If someone feels it's a good thing to invade countries without actual cause, but a possible cause sometime in the future, using similar aruguments to Hitler's, which landed lots of Nazis in jail or at the end of a noose, if someone thinks causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the mutilating of at least as many, the destruction of a nation and its cultural heritage--that someone to me is beyond the pale.
Our president, however, thinks his god told him to do these things, apparently, and he feels totally vindicated.
Alas.
Some good background from Juan Cole:
"...Western pundits, journalists and politicians who keep maintaining that Ahmadinejad threatened "to wipe Israel off the map" when he never said those words will never, ever manage to choke out the words Ahmadinejad spoke on Saturday, much less repeat them as a tag line forever after.
Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei's pledge of no first strike against any country by Iran with any kind of weapon, and his condemnation of nuclear bombs as un-Islamic and impossible for Iran to possess or use, was completely ignored by the Western press and is never referred to. Indeed, after all that talk of peace and no first strike and no nukes, Khamenei at the very end said that if Iran were attacked, it would defend itself. Karl Vicks of the Washington Post at the time ignored all the rest of the speech and made the headline, 'Khamenei threatens reprisals against US." In other words, on Iran, the US public is being spoonfed agitprop, not news."
http://www.juancole.com/2006/08/ahmadinejad-we-are-not-threat-to-any.html
I don't disagree with Brian's opinion that he should be allowed to speak although I have little hope that anything positive can be accomplished using the Columbia format. BUT at the same time that he is being given this forum in the interest of free speech and open discussion, Columbia has BANNED the protest groups against him from being anywhere near the campus where he could see the objections of these groups. This is what I see as gross hypocracy!
Comment 11 addresses the "wipe Israel off the map" mistranslation, but Juan Cole has been on this for years now. Where is the reporting on this of the vaunted free US press? The Guardian covered it--why not here?
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_steele/2006/06/post_155.html
More Juan Cole:
"...I object to the characterization of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as having "threatened to wipe Israel off the map." I object to this translation of what he said on two grounds. First, it gives the impression that he wants to play Hitler to Israel's Poland, mobilizing an armored corps to move in and kill people.
But the actual quote, which comes from an old speech of Khomeini, does not imply military action, or killing anyone at all. The second reason is that it is just an inexact translation. The phrase is almost metaphysical. He quoted Khomeini that "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time." It is in fact probably a reference to some phrase in a medieval Persian poem. It is not about tanks."
http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html
Additional Juan Cole:
"Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:34:18 -0400 From: "Cole, Juan"
The speech in Persian is here:
Sorry that I misremembered the exact phrase Ahmadinejad had used. He made an analogy to Khomeini's determination and success in getting rid of the Shah's government, which Khomeini had said "must go" (az bain bayad berad). Then Ahmadinejad defined Zionism not as an Arabi-Israeli national struggle but as a Western plot to divide the world of Islam with Israel as the pivot of this plan.
The phrase he then used as I read it is "The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."
Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope-- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah's government.
Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that "Israel must be wiped off the map" with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time."
Persian translators can go to the link and read the original language.
http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html
They should give him a platform. I do not understand all this hysteria. I really think that most people should start to get educated; get different source of news and make their own opinion instead of just relying on the opinions of some politicians and other people from the press who have their own agenda. I think most of the people who oppose the visit just do it to go with the crowd. They behave like spoiled children who put on a temper tantrum just because someone else disagrees with them.
My question to the President of Iran:
Despite our countries' history and counter-positions on important political issues, how can Iran and the United States come to some balance, some understanding, that will allow both countries to 'stand down,' de-escalate potentially devastating conflict, and begin to take care of their people's pressing needs?
I would love to hear from Persian speakers/translators to confirm that Juan Cole's translation and understanding of this words of the speech are on point.
Any out there in WNYC listener land?
Link to Juan Cole in #24 and #25 take you to link for the original Persian.
Thanks in advance if anyone can do this check.
I tend to trust Juan Cole, but I don't want to be wrong on this important issue. I know that the MCM* is only too willing to take words our of context, to misread intentions and meanings to fit current narratives, so perhaps even Prof. Cole is incorrect. But, the MCM has made the translation he disagrees with a point to be used as a reason to undertake a war of aggression: I think that should not be out there if, indeed, it is not correct.
We don't need another "Oops! No WND under my credenza" situation.
*MCM--Mainstream Corporate Media
Mr. Goodwin makes little sense in his denunciations of 'all these subjective lines' being drawn. Well, what other kinds of lines are there? They don't come from the sky, and they can't do our thinking for us. Thus, isn't one of the aims of a university education the training of students of how to draw, and defend, their own lines, i.e., to think for themselves? To this latter point, if I had a chance to have any nation's leader in my classroom (I'm an adjunct pol sci prof), I'd say 'hell, yeah --- as long as they'll take questions from the students and me.' The willingness to engage in debate and discourse is hardly a sign of approval of the other's position --- a crucial lesson for any student or citizen in a democratic society.
Of course we should encourage open discourse with those with whom we disagree. Bringing Hitler into it is beside the point and has the effect of bringing any discussion to a halt. What response is there to Hitler, after all. But Hitler's heinous policies were not evident at the start of his career and did not emerge when he first began his ascent. His policies developed step by step in the face of silence, disbelief, and fear on the part of the German people as well as the world at large. Perhaps if he had been engaged earlier, if his ideas had received wider attention, he would have been stopped before the horrors he later unleashed.
Also, by singling out Ahmajinedad for special attention, the US has elevated him beyond his importance in his own country.
And follow-up: No matter what inflammatory things he has supposedly said (do you really trust everything you hear reported about him?), the most powerful statement America can make is to allow him to speak! Is democracy so fragile that differing opinions, and so far that is all they are, cannot be heard in a free society? The world may be laughing at all the fuss, especially after all the American hubris about the greatness of Jeffersonian democracy. Americans do best when they demonstrate such greatness, rather than just shout about it.
My very first memory of a political statement, as I was growing up in Wisconsin, was seeing a bumper sticker on a family friend's car, back in the early 50's, that "Joe McCarthy Has Got to Go." The wording may not be exact, but that was the meaning. The visual memory is of seeing the car on my way to school, so it was at least when I entered first grade, maybe second since I could read it well, making it '52 or '53.
Listening to the segment, the Daily News guy, Michael Goodwin, made me wonder what discouse was like in NYC during the McCarthy Era.
By the time I got to college, at the University of Wisconsin, the very name McCarthy and his ism were anathema to most literate people that I knew.
Now, I hear people who speak about free speech and other rights of a free people as Mr. Goodwin does, and I wonder how we can be back to this kind of thing in my own lifetime.
Then, again, I also am amazed that we're redoing the Vietnam War mistake in even less time....
The bigotry with which Brian Lehrer has structured this program is frightening.
How many times does he call, or have his guests unchallenged call, Ahmadinejad a “moral monster”? But how is A. as monstrous morally as Cheney or Kissinger--who have caused millions of deaths in covert actions and falsely declared wars?
How often does Brian say, or have his guests say, that A. has threatened to kill Israelis? But isn’t what A. called for that Israel be wiped off the map, just as most previous colonial governments, such as, Rhodesian and French Algeria, have been wiped off, with colonial governments replaced by those of the native population?
How often does Brian support Bloomberg’s decision to bar A. from laying a wreath at Ground Zero? Isn’t it obvious that the main reason to keep A. from expressing sympathy for the attack we suffered is to fool many Americans into believing that Iran had some responsibility for 9/11--just as those Americans were fooled previously into believing that Iraq had responsibility for 9/11?
How often does the segment advance the notion that American go to war against Iran? Isn’t it obvious that war with Iran would be disastrous for America, even continued cold war is very harmful to us? Why is Brian pushing us down this road that will harm America?
I wonder why people are so afraid of letting him speak. He's clearly insane. Give him enough rope and he'll hang himself.
Here here Anonymous! Here here.
I was at the talk at at Columbia and these appeared to be the highlights:
1. he couldn't answer yes or no to the simple question whether he wants to destroy Israel or not
2. he weakly weasled on the Holocaust denial question
3. he bizarrely denied that there are homosexuals in Iran (this, sadly, might be more irksome to some than all the other crimes of the regime etc…)
Ironic that A.'s regime in Iran has not only publicly hung & stoned teen gays & women, but has thuggishly made mass arrests of women rights protesters, labor groups, students etc...
The utter destruction of human rights & freedom of speech in Iran, combined with the terror sponsorship, the unholy status of being the largest executor of children in the world and A. himself denygin gays, the Holocaust and his genocidal threats may have been strong arguments for not giving him the dais today.
But once he spoke, he confirmed to the students here that he is very dangerous with his hands on nuclear arms.
Regarding some of the bizaare comments regarding Jews/Israel above that often come along with a whitewash of Iranian and other Islamist regimes and a pathological hatred of Bush, I think think the bigotry is quite transparent.
One needn't be a Republican, pro-war in Iraq or Iran, pro-Israel or even pro-american (God forbid!) to also recognize that the Iranian regime is a grave danger, not just to Muslims in the region but to anyone within arms range of this mullocracy.
Leave a Comment
Please stay on topic, be civil, and be brief.
Back to EpisodeEmail addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. Names are displayed with all comments. WNYC reserves the right to edit any comments posted on this site. Please read the WNYC.org Comment Guidelines before posting.